


/// Run As Administrator

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Post-Break Up, Romance, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 10:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: In a time where sentiments and emotions can be downloaded using an app, will it mean much if you say how you feel?





	/// Run As Administrator

It had taken an hour and twelve minutes of hunting through the app store before he’d found the emotion he was looking for: 

‘I’m Sorry.’

The sentiment was short and simple, which was one reason why it was hard to find. Another reason was that Yeonjun’s phone was nearly four years old and the device lagged like hell, making the act of browsing a frustratingly slow task.

Yeonjun had wanted to give up on looking.  _ It’s not that important _ , his brain repeated in the dark hours before dawn where even the wackiest of ideas had merit and weight.  _ You shouldn’t apologize _ .

But...

He had to do this. He had to find the correct emotion. He had to send it and get someone important to feel the truth.

So he had kept looking. He kept scrolling.

‘I’m Sorry’ was just... difficult to find. It was an old emotion, for one thing, so it was hardly ever updated which meant it had fallen out of the app store’s algorithms years ago. The emotion was close to the bottom of every category and, on top of that, was easily lost among all of the other ‘I’m ____’ emotions when searched for (and there were hundreds upon hundreds of those.) What frustrated Yeonjun the most was that typing in the emotion name yielded no results yet  _ here it was _ . He was looking at it right now! He was both relieved and ready to start a fight with his phone and he didn’t need to install either emotion to feel that. 

“Why are feelings so complicated,” Yeonjun muttered under his breath. And, even though they were complicated, why was there a tiny little icon in the app store for every single one? “Why is telling someone how I feel so hard?”

Perhaps emotions had been simple back in the day, back in the beta rounds of emotion sharing, but now everything had gotten so streamlined and specific that very few things in the app store applied to Yeonjun’s life. What could he possibly do with “We haven’t spoken to each other since that embarrassing situation but I just wanted to say hey.” or “I’ve been trying to explain the same basic concept to you repeatedly yet you still don’t get it and I’m livid.” or “We’ve only been dating two or three weeks but I already love you.”

How did any of those apply to his straightforward life? He wasn’t _ that  _ interesting.

‘I’m Sorry’ was a classic. Vintage and clean-cut in a world where nuance reigned supreme. 

A third reason why Yeonjun had taken so long to find the emotion was that he’d tested out each of the apology downloads while scrolling through the app store, attempting to find something with the appropriate depth. The newer emotions buzzed across his skin. Vibrating. They made him uncomfortable, which worked, but the ‘I’m Sorry’ was something a little deeper. It hit differently. The emotion went to the tip of his brain stem and clicked on a series of nerve switches that put a low and dull pain in the lower left corner of his chest. It was deep and straight to the point like a needle of anesthesia to the gums at the dentist’s office before a wisdom tooth extraction. It was brutal because it wasn’t just a band-aid slapped over a wound. It was the cut, the bleeding, the applied pressure, the alcohol swab and  _ then _ the band-aid. 

‘I’m Sorry’  _ hurt _ .

And that was kind of the point. It was perfect.

Perfect enough that Yeonjun had waited until 7:12AM exactly to send it to Soobin. 

It had to be 7:12AM because he knew that was when Soobin had snoozed his way through his 6:50AM, 7:00AM and 7:10AM alarms and was finally sitting up to grab his phone and scroll through his notifications before getting ready for his 8:00AM class. 

It had to be 7:12AM because Yeonjun needed ‘I’m Sorry’ to be the first thing Soobin _ felt  _ when he woke up. 

Surely Soobin would sense Yeonjun’s earnestness. His desperation. His genuine desire to be forgiven for the stupid, silly, twisted thing he’d done. 

Unfortunately, when Yeonjun sent the emotion that morning, all huddled up beneath the comforter in his dorm room like he was doing something illicit, his phone alerted him with a musical tone that it would wait for Soobin’s approval before it began transferring the emotion to Soobin’s brain.

It was currently 7:48AM and Soobin had yet to accept.

⌘

After Yeonjun’s morning classes, he met up with Kai, Taehyun and Beomgyu at the curry restaurant that sat outside the north campus gates. 

The four of them were an odd bunch. 

At first glance, they didn’t even look like the types who’d speak to each other but that didn’t stop them from being friends.

Beomgyu was Yeonjun’s cousin. The son of Yeonjun’s mother’s sister, but the two of them hadn’t been close for years. Since Beomgyu was in primary school. It’s not that they’d ever had a falling out. It was just that Yeonjun and his mother moved to the other end of the country in the middle of some family mess when Yeonjun was a child. It was natural to grow distant. In fact, it had been a surprise to both Yeonjun and Beomgyu when they ran into each other in the campus library. Not only could they barely recognize each other but neither of them had expected the other to have been accepted to such a polished, high-tier university. 

Taehyun, like Beomgyu, was a uni freshman. He was one of Beomgyu’s classmates and, according to Beomgyu, the only one of his numerous roommates that was marginally pleasant to live with. 

Kai, sort of the odd one out, was still in high school and was technically skipping class by eating with all of them but something so trivial wouldn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop him. After all, he had been Taehyun’s friend since they were young and he wasn’t about to let a cross-city train ride and a half hour bus commute keep him from having lunch with his friend today. Even if that meant playing hooky for half the day.

The curry restaurant where they were eating was college-student cheap which was nice on the wallets but also meant the place was always crowded with moving bodies and that there was a 50/50 chance something in the curry would have someone on the toilet half the night. 

What was life without risks?

The booth they occupied in the back corner of the restaurant felt like their own private chat room and the free wifi was fast enough to keep Taehyun from complaining.

Yeonjun was still feeling anxious. “Should I try to send him another emotion? How many transfers is too many? What’s the cap? Do you know?”

“You’re  _ still _ trying to make things better?” Taehyun asked after Yeonjun had told them what he’d done that morning.

Yeonjun scooped curry into his mouth with a big, white spoon. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing to try and fix things.”

“It  _ is _ a bad thing.” Taehyun stated. Although his wide eyes were looking in Yeonjun’s direction from across the tiny linoleum table, the freshman wasn’t looking at Yeonjun. He was staring at the holographic screen that floated in the air in front of him. Taehyun tapped away at the browser screen, scrolling through text blocks too quickly (and too backwards) for Yeonjun to properly decipher from his side of the table but, if he knew Taehyun--and he hoped he did after nearly six months--then he was certain Taehyun was speed-reading his way through yet another stockpile of horny girl group fanfiction. Taehyun sighed dramatically. “Dude, you have to get over him. Didn’t Soobin break up with you like six months ago?”

“Isn’t it closer to a year?” Beomgyu asked, not even bothering to look up from the holo-tablet he’d laid on the table. The surface of the screen rippled lightly as Beomgyu tapped at it with a finger, feeding virtual fish.

Six months? A year? “No, it’s only been sixteen days,” Yeonjun corrected, slightly horrified by their lack of awareness. “How can you confuse a year with sixteen days?”

“It’s the same thing,” Beomgyu stated. One of the tiny, holographic fish he was nurturing jumped out of the pool of water. The ‘splash’ covered Yeonjun’s curry in soundless, tasteless pixels.

Kai was also attached to his phone screen, using his finger to swipe pastel stripes of watercolor across a coloring book page. 

“Well, I’m still not over him,” Yeonjun muttered. “Although I probably should be.”

“As long as you know,” said Taehyun. “As long as you’re aware that you’re being silly.”

But was apologizing being  _ silly _ ?

Being the only one not attached to his phone screen, Yeonjun was the first to notice Yeri walk up to their booth. She was dressed cutely, Yeonjun noticed. Her off-the-shoulder blouse was probably too thin for chilly October weather like this but Yeri never played around when it came to fashion. Her makeup was heavy and full of earth tones. She had gone through the effort of curling her hair into tight ringlets. All of this meant that she didn’t have volleyball practice today. 

Beomgyu slid over to make room for her without looking up, as if he always knew where she was and what she wanted. Beomgyu’s elbow dug into Yeonjun’s side until he, too, slid to the left.

Yeri eased down onto the freshly-made space on the booth seat. The movement made Yeonjun spot the phone clutched in her right hand.

Instead of some boyfriend’s intuition, perhaps Beomgyu had simply received an emotion transfer from her asking him to move over.

Yeri’s thumb slid over her phone screen, tapping icons in rapid succession like it was all muscle memory. Like she could do it in her sleep.

Beomgyu’s virtual fish paused in mid-motion as a small window popped open in the air above the table. Yeonjun glanced over Beomgyu’s shoulder to read the alert: “Yeri would like to send you ‘Hello, dear. I love you.’ Do you accept?” 

Yeonjun frowned a bit. It was a surprisingly archaic emotion, better suited for a couple about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

Regardless, Beomgyu hastily tapped ‘yes’ so he could get back to his virtual fish feeding, but it was impossible not to notice the brand new grin that split his face.

A few seconds later, confirmation windows appeared on the other boys’ windows; a simple ‘Hello, hope you are feeling well’ from Yeri. Yeonjun felt his phone vibrate in the pocket of his jacket. Taehyun accepted the emotion and then spent a few seconds sending a responsive emotion back to Yeri, his expression unchanging. Kai, sitting next to Taehyun, rejected the request without hesitation and continued his zen coloring.

It got quiet in their little booth, then. Everyone except Yeonjun were glued to their screens, busy in their own activities. 

It wasn’t that Yeonjun didn’t like using his phone, he just preferred using actual words out of his mouth to convey his own unique emotions rather than sending little files that anyone and everyone could download straight to their brain. Perhaps over a significant distance, he’d use emotion transfers but why bother with all of the extra menus and data usage when who you wanted to talk to was sitting directly across from you?

“Maybe I’m just cynical,” he said aloud. He put a hand over his chest. The rectangular shape of his phone pressed itself into his curry-stained palm. “Or maybe my phone is just old.” The brand new ePhone had just been announced which meant his own phone had become one more generation obsolete. “Or maybe capitalism just sucks.”

No one commented on his monologue. No one looked up at him and laughed. Every eye at the table was zeroed in on a holographic screen. Even their bowls of curry had been left predominantly untouched. Yeonjun scooped up the last of his rice on his spoon and shoveled it into his mouth. He looked from dish to dish around him, trying to decide if he was hungry enough to eat from anyone else’s plate. Kai had already piled napkins on top of his half-finished bowl. Beomgyu had gone through great pains to eat all of his chicken and slurp up most of the spicy sauce, leaving only his rice behind. Taehyun’s curry was chopped squid, shrimp and peas. Oddly, it made Yeonjun crave sushi instead of curry. He wondered if it would be easier to scroll through the app store and search for a ‘Want to get sushi?’ instead of voicing his desire aloud.

It wouldn’t be faster by any means but it would be… easier.

The silence dragged on and on and on. Heavier, this time, because now Yeonjun was also aware of how quiet most of the other tables in the restaurant were. It seemed like everyone was holding their phones in front of their faces, their bowls of curry untouched and steaming in front of them.

Yeonjun glanced down and noticed that Yeri and Beomgyu were rapidly exchanging pleasant messages. Yeri’s ‘I love you the most’ met with Beomgyu’s ‘Let’s be together forever’ met with Yeri’s ‘I’m the happiest when I’m with you.’ The budding couple smiled and grinned at their phones as they scrolled their way through page after page of loving emotions to transfer to each other, but it struck Yeonjun as odd, maybe even  _ cold _ , that the two of them kept facing forward, kept staring at their screens, kept digitally sending the contents of their hearts back and forth between them, even when they were sitting right next to each other.

⌘

It was 2:11PM. Yeonjun was approximately an hour and some change into his Art History 102 class.

While the majority of his classmates dozed, their heads bobbing towards their chests as they fought off sleep, Yeonjun was attentive. 

“Is the subject of this painting being objectified or are they the ones being manipulative,” the professor asked, pointing to the partially naked woman displayed in the holographic image floating halfway up the wall. “Anyone? Anyone at all?”

Yeonjun raised a hand and barely waited for the professor to acknowledge him before he barreled forward with his answer. “Oh, I love the question. I really do. Isn’t it both?” He thumbed through his carefully arranged notes. “Surely the artist painted her lounging back with her legs in the air as a way to objectify her but the woman as the subject of the painting is clearly the instigator here. She purposefully draws the viewer in with her… rather lecherous pose and her facial expression.” 

The professor nodded, but instead of being relieved that he was holding on to his students’ attention, he instead appeared a bit glum that Yeonjun--and only Yeonjun--seemed willing to participate in discussions today.

Yeonjun couldn’t help it.

He quite enjoyed lectures. Mainly because lectures were a bit too cumbersome in terms of file size to send through emotion transfer. Plus, as many educators discovered during the early beta stages of ePhones, transferring lectures directly to a student’s brain taught them nothing. Details couldn’t be taught through emotion and information certainly couldn’t be retained strictly through feeling. There was layer upon layer of psychology involved but, what it boiled down to, was that attempting to transfer a lecture directly to someone’s brain only poured the anxiety of  _ being taught _ into a student.

So that’s why Yeonjun liked lectures. He could use his words and have someone listen to his words and understand him through his words. And maybe they would say something back and he could listen and understand them through  _ their _ words.

It was just like the old days. Like it was still 2019 or something.

That and the professor was covering Yeonjun’s favorite art movement: rococo.

Of course he would be paying every ounce of attention! 

Yeonjun loved that there was a layer of debauchery and hedonism hidden beneath the frivolous frills and pastel petticoats. The pink and rose-tinted romance could be... overwhelming at first glance but Yeonjun loved the thrill of peeling back the layers of pretty to find the ugly and unclean underneath.

That might have been why he was so attuned to Soobin.

He, too, was a walking contradiction.

On the surface, Soobin was a tall, beefy, mean-looking sucker but peel back the layers and he was really a big softie with his heart on his sleeve who just so happened to really enjoy putting on eyeliner and throwing together punk rock all-black outfits. Soobin was effortlessly cool with his weirdly specific knowledge about Scandinavian pop stars, his guitar case always slung over his shoulder and the stick of a lollipop dangling from between his pouty lips like an unlit cigarette.

But then, peel back even more layers and Yeonjun had even more of Soobin to explore. Like how he loved to cook but could really only prepare three or four different meals without setting something on fire. How Soobin loved to go down to the open-air market on Sundays and purposefully buy bootleg t-shirts with broken English emblazoned across the front just to wear them ironically. Mainly because he knew Yeonjun was fluent in the language and would always get a kick out of whatever lewd or grammatically incorrect statement he was wearing.

And even beneath that were other layers. Soft layers. Prickly layers. Surprisingly horny layers. A deep-rooted tree of arrogance and selfishness that no one would expect when they first caught Soobin’s dimpled smile or spotted him pulling up in front of the student union on his motorcycle. 

Soobin was just… amazing. And free. He was just  _ so great _ .

And Yeonjun had caught him. Only to let him slip away.

“Anyone?” The professor asked. His voice snapped Yeonjun out of his reverie. “Anyone,” the professor repeated, searching up and down each row of exhausted or bored students.

Yeonjun stared hard at the hologram screen, attempting to find some kind of clue about the nature of the question that the professor had certainly just asked. He found none. He had no clue what the professor had said and did his best to avoid eye contact with the man.

“Anyone,” the professor asked again. A few minutes ago, they had seemed to be fed up with Yeonjun and his hoarding of the floor. Now it seemed like the guy would do anything to get Yeonjun to contribute.

Yeonjun just bit down hard on his fingernail and waited impatiently for the professor to move on.

⌘

Yeonjun checked his phone at around 4:29PM. He ignored the email from his academic advisor. He barely skimmed through the group chat he was in with a few classmates, most of them only requesting copies of notes or help on homework anyway. Yeonjun pushed away the push notifications from a game he was playing. He even closed out of the chat window with Kim Taehyung, the blue-haired hottie from the uptown music store who had legit just asked Yeonjun out on a date that ‘doesn't need to involve any of our friends.’

Yeonjun ignored everything. Or dismissed it. Or muted it. He dug his way to the bottom of his tabs and held his breath to see if Soobin had started the emotion transfer.

The file was still waiting to be accepted.

⌘

They were walking along the skybridge, Yeonjun, Taehyun and Beomgyu.

It was nearly 6:00PM and the boys had just barely missed the sunset. The oranges and mauves and dusky pinks still swirled dimly on the horizon but the black of night had taken over, scattering stars across the sky. The dazzling jewelry of the city lights shone on either side of them as they walked the bridge.

Yeonjun liked the skybridge, even if it was a packed-full tourist trap tonight and they were all squeezed in shoulder-to-shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines in a tin. The bridge was both an art piece and a way for pedestrians to walk from one tower of the massive Crown Department store to the other. The lights along the railing gradually changed color from blue to yellow and then back again. The ground was ten stories below them, keeping them far above the noise and smog of the traffic below.

“I saw you hanging out with Jungkook after class today,” Yeonjun said, teasingly poking Taehyun’s shoulder.

“I don’t like him.” Taehyun swatted Yeonjun’s bony finger away. “He’s so nice.”

“Wait, hold on.” Had Yeonjun heard right?

“You hate him because he’s nice,” Beomgyu asked, voicing the exact thought Yeonjun just had. As high up as they were, the wind was strong and his hair was flying in every direction. His nose was turning a bright red. He sniffled. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.” Taehyun grunted. “He smiles way too much and can say hello in ten languages and he’s always blowing up my inbox with emotion transfers and conversation starters.” He shuddered but whether it was due to the cold or the horrors he had just described, it was hard to tell. “I don’t like him.”

Yeonjun knew the feeling. “I was like that with Soobin at the beginning.” 

Taehyun rolled his eyes. “Oh no, here we go again.”

“No drunk ranting or crying this time. I swear,” Yeonjun defended himself. “I was definitely… pushy. But I put myself in his way enough to make him notice me.”

Taehyun peered through the glass wall of the skybridge. He had an uninterrupted view from here all the way to the magnificently lit up Star Tower. “You say all of that like I want to notice Jungkook. I hate him, remember? He’s… pleasant.”

“I still don’t get it.” Beomgyu shook his head.

“What’s there not to get?” Taehyun nearly shouted. “He’s so arrogant. I can’t stand him.”

“You think he’s arrogant... for wondering how your day went.” Yeonjun stated it. It hadn’t been a question.

“When I’m in the middle of reading fanfiction, yeah it’s arrogance. Or something. I had to temporarily block him this afternoon because his pop-ups were driving me insane.”

“Temporarily? That means you unblocked him.” Beomgyu observed. “That means you want more notifications from him.”

Taehyun pulled his dark brown hair with both hands and let out a disgruntled, non-verbal noise.

Yeonjun giggled before he could slap a hand over his mouth and stop the sound.

“It’s not funny,” screeched Taehyun. He bolted away from them, nearly vanishing in the thick crowd of shoppers and sightseers.

Yeonjun and Beomgyu rushed to follow him. 

This back and forth wasn’t the first time Taehyun and Beomgyu had gotten into this. Then again, this was far from the first time Taehyun had felt so conflicted about his feelings for Jungkook.

Jungkook was simply dreamy. Even Yeonjun could admit that. Jungkook had glossy black hair that hung nearly to his shoulders in gently rolling waves. He had a tattoo of a Chinese dragon on his side that he was always trying to show off. He had a smirk that could go from angelic to demonic with just the slightest angle change. Lips as glossy and red as a candy apple. A surprisingly smooth singing voice in spite of his chain-smoking habit. Honestly, really, truly, Jungkook was a  _ catch _ and that was one of the (roughly 3,428) reasons why Taehyun did not want to be  _ caught _ . To him, Jungkook was one of many of his chess opponents. A mind to casually wage war against on Wednesday afternoons during public matches at the community center. Jungkook wasn’t someone to  _ get involved _ with.

As he walked, Yeonjun checked his phone again. There wasn’t much of a signal out on the bridge, but he had enough bars to see that Soobin still hadn’t accepted the emotion transfer. Yeonjun refreshed the page. And then refreshed again. And again. No matter how deeply he wished, though, the file transfer refused to start without Soobin’s permission.

Dejected, Yeonjun shoved his phone back in his pocket and stared up at the night sky.

Even the sky had looked different back when he’d been with Soobin. When the two of them were together, it was like every color was amplified. The black of the night sky held purples and blues and reds and yellows. Every color of the rainbow was locked up in the sky, swirling through celestial patterns. Even the constellations were bright and warm and shining. Yeonjun could see everything back then. Or maybe he was just in love.

In love with Soobin’s easy smile and goofy laugh and heart-shaped lips that always tasted like sweet root beer and lime-flavored chapstick. In love with the doting way Soobin brewed tea for him and sang in Swedish whenever Yeonjun caught a cold. In love with the way Soobin struck up conversation with him as if he was always in a hurry to show Yeonjun how he  _ felt _ .

But all of that was in the past now. Sixteen days in the past. It sounded frivolous but Soobin was one of the only people Yeonjun really got to talk to these days.

His heart and his head and his bones had been devoid of someone else’s emotions for sixteen days.

He felt empty.

Yeonjun and Beomgyu caught up with Taehyun halfway across the skybridge. Or, more accurately, Taehyun had run out of breath and sat with his back to the glass, winded and red in the face.

Beomgyu sat down on one side of him. Yeonjun sat down on the other. He had to tuck his feet completely underneath his legs to keep passers-by from tripping over his ankles.

“It’s too early in the evening to be having an existential crisis,” Taehyun moaned. He tugged his phone out of his pocket to check the time. “These kinds of thoughts are reserved for midnight or later.”

“Ooooh,” Beomgyu sang out. “What kind of thoughts are you having that you gotta wait until midnight to have them? Thoughts about Jungkook?”

“No. Absolutely not. And definitely not anything that you’re thinking.” 

“You’re kind of adorable when you’re shy,” Beomgyu teased him. 

“Can it,” snapped Taehyun. 

“See? Isn’t this fun,” Yeonjun asked. “Talking with each other without using our ePhones?”

Both Beomgyu and Taehyun looked up at him with wide eyes as if he’d grown a second head.

“You know…” Yeonjun continued lamely. “Looking at each other’s faces? Saying exactly what it is we feel? No weird brain implants to get in the way.”

“Dude… We’re not doing this for fun,” said Beomgyu.

“Do you see where we are,” questioned Taehyun. “There’s no good cell reception up here.” They still had quite a ways to go before they’d even be at the other end of the bridge. Before they’d be in the other tower of Crown Department Store and back where there was heating and wifi.

Beomgyu stood up. “Conversations are a lot easier to have when you don’t have to open your mouth.” He held out a hand. Taehyun grabbed it and pulled himself to his feet. Beomgyu held out his other hand. Yeonjun took it and grunted with effort as he stood. “And it’s so much easier to say what you feel when someone else has gone through the work of feeling it first.”

Not wanting to further derail the conversation, Yeonjun cleared his throat and switched topics. “But about Jungkook…” He looked over at Taehyun. The boy clearly hadn’t paid attention to the weather report and was severely underdressed for the autumn night. Yeonjun said, “I say you flirt back. Just to throw him for a loop. For guys like him, it’s all about the chase. Let him catch you and he’ll get bored and find somebody else to run after. He’ll leave you alone then.”

“But that’s the thing,” Taehyun mumbled. “I don’t want him to--” The rest of his sentence was snatched away by a sudden gust of wind.

“I’m sorry, what was that,” Beomgyu asked, leaning in closer and cupping a hand around his ear. “What did you say? Speak up!”

“I said I don’t want him to run after somebody else because…” Taehyun’s face went red and it definitely wasn’t because of the crisp October air. “...because maybe I  _ do _ like it when Jungkook chases me.”

“Aha!” Beomgyu shouted.

Yeonjun shrugged. He had just recalled something. “Do you think he’ll keep trying after you sent that ‘Get the hell away from me’ the other day? That was rude, you know. The game wasn’t even finished.”

“He really did that?” Beomgyu’s eyes went wide in astonishment.

“Yeah,” Yeonjun replied. He had gone to the community center to watch Taehyun play chess. He’d seen the exchange with his own eyes.

“How do you know I did that?” Taehyun asked. His eyebrows were furrowed like he was both angry and confused. “How do you know what I transferred to him?”

“I saw it pop up on his screen.” Yeonjun explained. “I was sitting at the table, too.” All he had to do was look up.

“You. Can. Do. That?” Taehyun asked slowly, enunciating each syllable. “You can read someone else’s emotions?”

He was kind of going the wrong way with this. “I read it on the screen,” Yeonjun clarified. “And I was shocked when he tapped accept.” And shocked all over again when he watched Jungkook’s smile vanish. When he watched as Jungkook stood up and left the table, leaving their game unfinished. 

“I can’t believe you would do something like that.” Beomgyu poked Taehyun’s arm. And then his neck. And then his chest. And then his side. “I can’t believe you’d send something like that to him when he likes you so much!”

“Why are you shocked?” Taehyun crossed his arms over his chest, as much to protect himself from the cold as he did to protect his tickle spot from Beomgyu’s prodding. “Jungkook was driving me nuts. It’s no different from you telling Hoseok to fuck off when we were at that esports tournament last month.”

Yeonjun sighed. There was no stopping them now.

Beomgyu gasped, not used to the vulgarity. “I didn’t tell him... to  _ fuck off _ . I sent him an ‘I’m going through a hard time right now, so I’d appreciate it if you’d back off.’ It’s totally different.”

“It’s exactly the same.” Taehyun insisted. “You weren’t going through a hard time, you were just pissed because you were stumped with that Rubik’s cube app.”

“It’s why I switched to fish feeding. You can’t get stuck feeding fish.”

“Yeah, you can. The fish can die.”

“I hate you.”

“Send me the link.”

⌘

Nights like these were the best.

Down off of the skybridge, the wind was actually bearable and there was still a hint of warmth to the evening.

The clock said 8:39PM but beneath the bright white lights, the night sky had all but vanished overhead.

Around them, the old shrine had been decorated especially for the festivities tonight. Red paper lanterns hung off of the railings of the stone stairs, hung from the eaves of the shrine. Traditional Korean music  _ thump thump thumped  _ as a large group of musicians kept up a frantic beat. Dancers in brilliant silk hanboks twirled and twirled, opening and closing their paper fans in a hypnotic pattern. Jesters spit oil from their mouths and sent plumes of fire up into the air while others juggled objects impossibly high into the air. The plaza in front of the shrine was lined from edge to edge with vendor stalls. Some sold flowers, others sold poetry written in calligraphy, a few sold melt-in-your-mouth beef skewers and fragrant candy. One woman even sold colorful hairpins and modern hanboks which the boys eagerly fawned over and bought.

“For the ‘Gram,” Taehyun noted, smoothing down the front of the solid blue hanbok he had chosen. The color looked sturdy and unmoving like a polished stone.

“For the memories,” said Beomgyu, holding a sizzling beef skewer in one hand and his ePhone in the other. He snapped a selfie, standing in front of a row of lanterns so that the warm glow of their light brought out the rich, maroon color of the stylish hanbok he had chosen.

“For the history,” Yeonjun said. Because, to him, tonight was like taking a step back in time. Like living an episode of one of his favorite dramas. He had picked one of the more expensive outfits. The pale purple silk was embroidered on the sleeves, the front patterned with white flowers and a stark but striking green trim at the hem. “And because it’s fun.” And fun was the one thing keeping him from thinking about Soobin.

Welp.

Not anymore.

If Soobin were here, if he could be cajoled into coming to something like this, Yeonjun wondered what he’d wear. Something pink and over the top? Or perhaps he’d pick the black and gold brocaded robes of the king? Yeah. Being king would fit Soobin.

Yeonjun shook his head. This wasn’t about sixteen days ago. This was about tonight. “It’s fun, right?”

Kai, really being serious in his teenage rebellion, was ten minutes away from curfew but could care less. He was the only one still in casual clothes, looking snug against the chill in his oversized hoodie and sweatpants. He said nothing, but screwed his face up in Yeonjun's direction in a clear protest of any of this being 'fun.'

“I basically agree,” Taehyun huffed. "With Kai. About this not being fun."

“Come on,” Beomgyu whined at them. “It’s a blast. We’re having a blast. I’ve taken like… two hundred photos already. I wonder if I should stream this. How bad is my hat hair?”

The shrine plaza was crowded with bodies. An eerie blue light filled the air as hundreds and hundreds of floating screens hovered in front of just as many faces. The smell of frying food was heavy and the music in the distance crescendoed to nearly dissonant levels but, overall, the place was strangely quiet… but not because the fireworks would start any second now.

Yeonjun looked around and realized that his friends must have had a hard limit to the length of conversation they could engage in. Just in the few seconds Yeonjun had been admiring the scenery, the three of them had all pulled out their phones and had gotten lost in the pixelated world beyond their holo-screens.

Beomgyu was playing some game where the goal was to catch weirdly adorable creatures who could spit fire from their mouths or shoot electricity from their whiskers.

Taehyun had found another fanfic to read.

Kai had started on a fresh coloring book page.

“Are you kidding me?” Taehyun exclaimed out of the blue. A pop-up from Jungkook hovered in front of him. “I don’t care. Go away, go away, go away.” He declined whatever message had been sent to him but, within seconds, another had popped up. Yeonjun walked towards him just to get a better look at Taehyun’s screen. 

“Jungkook would like to transfer to you: ‘I’m here too, would you like to meet up?’ Do you accept?”

Taehyun considered it a few seconds--maybe even  _ hesitated _ \--before accepting. As the emotion downloaded to Taehyun’s brain, Yeonjun could see flickers of the installed feeling in Taehyun’s eyes. Was that… hope? And was that a  _ smile _ on Taehyun’s face? Then the boy rummaged through his own emotion files and probably surprised himself when he offered up ‘I’m excited to meet you’ for transfer. A few seconds later, another message from Jungkook popped up. It was a small map of the neighborhood. A green dot represented Taehyun on the southernmost edge of the shrine plaza. A red dot right in front of the shrine represented Jungkook. Without a word of goodbye, digital or otherwise, Taehyun spun around and walked away, the wind catching the coattails of his hanbok.

Yeonjun eased himself down onto the stone brick wall. In front of him, Beomgyu was still playing his monster catching game.

Kai continued to methodically paint colors across the mandala he was working on. Every time an emotion transfer notification popped up, he immediately declined it, regardless of who it was from.

Then something clicked in Yeonjun’s head:

If Soobin had declined Yeonjun’s apology that morning, his phone wouldn’t be telling him now that it was still waiting to be accepted. The prompt would have disappeared completely. Surely, Soobin had seen the transfer request by now which meant he had spent the day at least  _ considering _ the prospect of trying things with Yeonjun again. Even if he’d minimized the window and went about his business, it was still there, it was still an option.

Soobin hadn’t said no. Not yet.

If Yeonjun used emotion transfers more often than he did, he probably would have remembered that bit long before now.

Not ten minutes later, the fireworks began.

The pops and crackles of the fireworks display drowned out the music being played in the distance. They drowned out the white noise of thoughts in Yeonjun’s head.

The dazzling bright colors glittered one after the other in the air. Reds and whites and oranges and blues and bursts of magnificent greens. Patterns appeared. Circles and hearts and stars. Showers of golden streaks.

Yeonjun hadn’t seen anything so grand. His eyes were so wide in awe that the wind threatened to snatch tears from his eyes. He clamped his mouth shut and looked over at Kai. “Are you seeing this? It’s--” His voice died in his throat.

Kai was still coloring.

“You even listening to me,” Yeonjun asked, feeling a little hurt. A little ignored.

Kai’s only response was picking a different color before going back to filling in the drawing.

Yeonjun tsked in total disbelief. “Beomgyu, can you believe that he’s not even watching--” But when he turned his head towards Beomgyu, his cousin was now trying to catch water-spitting turtles on his phone instead of looking up and watching the fireworks. “Even you?”

Beomgyu didn’t say anything because he hadn’t heard anything but the trill sounds from his game.

Yeonjun slouched and let out a disappointed sigh. He wondered if Taehyun and Jungkook were somewhere close by watching the fireworks or if they, too, were facing forward, getting emotions shot straight into their heads instead of facing each other and telling each other what they really felt.

Yeonjun’s mood plummeted. He propped his chin up on his palm and suddenly became overwhelmed with loneliness.

When Soobin was around, Yeonjun always had someone to talk to.

⌘

After the fireworks ended, Yeonjun managed to pull his friends away from their phones long enough for them to leave the waning energy of the festival. It was late. 11:34PM late. 

Kai had gone home first. He was determined to go to school for an entire day tomorrow. Mainly because Yeonjun dared him to. 

Beomgyu, Yeonjun and Taehyun took the train back to their university. Beomgyu and Taehyun were too caught up in their rapid fire emotion exchange to notice how most of the commuters stared at the trio of slouching boys in their ruffled hanboks and lopsided hats, their shopping bags of clothing wedged between their dirt-covered shoes. 

It was past midnight when they made it back to campus grounds.

Yeonjun walked with the other two to their freshman dorm and then started the journey to the sophomore dorm. 

He was in his room for all of five seconds before he checked his phone for the umpteenth time to see that Soobin had yet to accept or decline his apology. The ambiguity upset him. He would have felt so much better if Soobin had just outright rejected him. A ‘no’ was still an answer, even if it wasn’t the one he was hoping for after an entire day of living and waiting.

Yeonjun peeled out of his hanbok, gently hung it up in the closet and then showered the days grime off of him.

He was drowsy with sleep but jittery with anxiety as he crawled into bed at 2:29AM.

The bright blue glow of the holo-screen flooded his room and skewed the shadows of his furniture up the walls as he checked his phone one last time before going to sleep.

His apology still sat in the digital ether. Acknowledged but untouched.

Yeonjun exhaled deeply through his nose and was a blink away from shoving his phone under his pillow and calling it a night when he realized something. If he wanted to get back with Soobin, if he wanted things between them to go back to the way they were sixteen days ago, he would have to act like they acted sixteen days ago.

He tapped his thumb against the screen, easily pressing the icons in the correct order. 

What good was asking to transfer some vague emotion when a phone call would more accurately get his point across?

**Author's Note:**

> @[Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/TheSwingbyJHF)


End file.
